Reimagining health in Porirua: a community-led approach to hauora

Meaningful community engagement is essential when designing health services and initiatives. Te Wāhi Tiaki Tātou was established as the Porirua locality under the Pae Ora Act 2022 to support place-based approaches to hauora. Our community engagement takes the form of "reimagining sessions":, facilitated hui that elevate lived experience as a powerful and essential form of evidence in health service design.

Reimagining sessions blend principles from participatory action research (PAR) and service design, grounded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi. From PAR, they draw on honouring lived experience as expertise. Service design contributes sequencing and holistic thinking principles. Shared principles across both PAR and service design are community-centred approaches, where whānau are positioned as co-creators (from service design) or co-researchers (from PAR), and power sharing with the community to create space for true community-led decision making. Whānau and providers are invited separately to map their experiences of current health services and envision an ideal future state. Sessions are guided by relational engagement and reflexive practice.

Reimagining sessions are more than a consultation mechanism, and serve to share power and elevate community voice. Outputs are synthesised into action-oriented reports validated by participants. Our learnings highlight the importance of trusted relationships, culturally safe environments and emotional anchoring to support aspirational thinking.

Reimagining sessions demonstrate that whānau-led change is possible when communities are treated as experts in their own lives. They reflect a shift from consultation to collaboration, from systems-centred to whānau-centred and from generic services to community-informed services.